Is there anything I said last night, last evening, that maybe for those of you, maybe almost everyone who's here, maybe you weren't here last night. Yeah. Yeah. So is there anything that sticks in your mind that we ought to look at for her sake or anyone else who would? Is there anything from last night that's still bothering you or that's stuck in your head that you'd like to say? Okay. I found it very interesting how you explained to us that in the Japanese imagination, the direction of the sky can look like this. The direction of the sky and the direction of the sun can look like this. The direction of the sky between the stars and the sun. I don't know if you can see it over there. I find it remarkable how you said to us that in this Japanese worldview the cardinal directions and the in-between directions of those eight and up and down are all coming toward us.

[01:23]

They're not out there, they're coming toward us. Yes, it's just so beautiful because it's so positive. It's an astoundingly different world view and the possibilities that open up are amazing to see that it's possible possibly possible to experience it in this way. Yeah, Paul, go ahead. Well, I've tried to put this into German, some way Christian can help me with that, and try to solve the subtleties of the words. One of the things I noticed yesterday was you were saying it's held

[02:23]

Attention. Closely held attention. And this is the door for me that we are creating for the self-talking in truth. For me it is also the door to create something and not fall into a world view And I found then it important I sat alone this morning to investigate the difference between holding as an act of weevil

[03:28]

I hold it as an intention. I'm sorry, I can't do this much. I draw some things. There's no way of getting this difference. Translate yourself. Yeah. Can you say that again? What's the German word mean? Let me try this once again, from the other possible translation. Intention, for me, has something with inner posture. Yeah.

[04:38]

And I don't know a German word to translate this. And holding as an inner posture rather than actively. That's right. Well, I think... Yeah. Well, I think... And this is the difference between holding as a will act, a will effort, and holding as an inner holding. And the word Absicht, this meaning of the inner holding, is not the middle. I think we have an advantage, not that I care whether we have an advantage or not, but I think we do have an advantage, trying to practice, study, practice Buddhism, meditation, etc., in the West.

[06:03]

The big advantage, of course, is there's not so much cultural resonance that supports us. But because we don't have much cultural resonance from our non-yoga culture, Because we don't have so much support, we have to make a bigger shift to notice fundamental truth about how we exist. Now, for Nagarjuna, the so-called conventional truth and the so-called fundamental truth are a single dynamic.

[07:24]

Yeah, so it's not that the conventional truth is just conventional, but the real truth is the fundamental truth. It's not just that the conventional truth is simply conventional and what we really want is the fundamental truth. In other words, it is a fact. We have to live with each other and in the world mostly through the conventional truth. And that dynamic of feeling, knowing the shift between the conventional truth to the fundamental truth, is the kind of shift that makes enlightenment possible. And so, because we don't have so much resonance from our inborn culture,

[08:49]

If we do have this shift, it's much more likely to be an earthquake or a breakdown. Excuse me, let's hope not. It does seem that the way we function that that we do create an ensembled, an ensemble or assembled world

[10:17]

That hangs together in some way. The various parts support each other. Or imply each other. Yeah. So when you make a significant change in one part of it, one part of this ensemble, it sometimes creates a domino effect and the whole thing shifts. As I said the other day, I know somebody who grew up, he grew up in, I think I mentioned in the last seminar, he grew up in New Jersey and was thinking of being a rabbi, not a rabbi.

[11:31]

And he went to Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, to go to college. And he spent the first few months thinking, everybody here has got an accent. And it took him a little while, and he suddenly thought, I have the accent. And it was enough of a shift in his young mind that he had an ordinary experience and decided not to be a rabbi, but to be a Buddhist. So part of the path of practice is trying to create opportunities for the right moment, context for such a shift. So the other day, part of the way I'm speaking about this came from Christina translating for me.

[13:08]

And I spoke about the, when you know something by heart, which I was using as an example of saying that when you know a chant by heart or a poem by heart or something like that, when you come to a point where you don't quite know it and you try to read it, You have to shift out of the mind that knows it by heart. And it's rather difficult. And then you come to parts you know and you have to shift back into a little jolt. I don't think I thought what you just said. You didn't? Okay. But you know it. Okay. Well, not yet, maybe.

[14:26]

That when you're chanting, say, and you haven't chanted the Dahi Shindirani for a while. And you want to refresh your memory, there's parts where you don't remember. So you pick up the chanting card. And the mind that can find the place and then read it is not the mind that chants it. So it's a clear example of we have different modalities of mind that function. I think most people notice things like that, but not so many people say, oh, okay, my life is going to be the study of the modalities of mind.

[15:34]

So when we try to translate by heart, I asked Christina, do you say by heart or by lungs or something like that? I know it's a lung. No, and she said, no, we know it from inside out. Yes. Is that correct?

[16:52]

She's got a different German word than you do. No, no, the word is the same. Inside out. I don't know if I have the same image. Yeah. He's the one who's turned out. Turned out? Turning out from where? Turned out. So I just complete it. With a little Buddhist influence. Yeah, okay. It's a creative Buddhist etymology.

[17:54]

Yeah, right. From turning, out of turning. We keep turning something, we keep repeating, we keep practicing it. So from turning it over and over again you learn it's ... Oh, okay. Well, this is the Irish Buddhist etymology. Okay, well, whatever. I like the idea that we could talk about from inside out. Anyway, it's something you can feel or say in German, perhaps. Because if we do emphasize it is from inside out, we have a good Dharma door to enter the worldview of Buddhism. to the world of Buddhism.

[19:23]

Okay. You know, if you think of your... Okay. The Buddha supposedly said, In this several foot long, he doesn't know a foot, but you know whatever, in this several foot long body, is the work. And is the arising of the world. And is the ceasing of the world. And is the path that leads to the ceasing of the world. Now again, this is a very complex statement.

[20:32]

First he says, in this body, is the world. Whatever we know as humans, this is the world. And as I said, the word body in Buddhism means that which makes the stuff of the body alive. So when he says, in this six foot long or several foot long body, when he says body, he means also that which makes the body alive, is the world.

[21:43]

And also is the arising of the world. And is the ceasing of the world. and is the path that leads to the ceasing of the world. The last phrase has two meanings. One is, in effect, you're body is going to lead to its own ceasing. But for one who leads a body of wisdom, who lives a body of wisdom, and not one who lives a body of ignorance. From that point of view, the path that leads to the ceasing of the world means nirvana or enlightenment.

[22:47]

And as you know, the word Buddha means to be awakened. And if we make it a noun, a person, then we have to say the awakened one or something like that. But more accurately, the word Buddha means the discovery of awakening. Again you have this dynamic of ignorance and wisdom.

[24:10]

So the path is the path of waking up. And that waking up comes from the inside out. If you think of the body as something, a Baumeister, is that a contract? Something like that? I'm not trying to help you translate it, I just want to... I just heard the word the other day, and I thought it meant contractor. If you think a contractor made your body... This is a delusional view. a misleading, confusing view. In English, confusing and confounding mean to mix things together which don't belong together.

[25:43]

So that becomes misleading. Yeah, okay. But to think of the body, I mean, how can we get a feel for what I'm trying to say? Say you're a turtle. You wouldn't think a baumeister built my shell. Your shell arose from the inside out. And that's much more like a Buddhist feels. The body, you are creating your own body.

[26:51]

And this kind of idea is so much a natural, a usual part of the culture in Japan, for instance. It's assumed that intelligent people have better bodies. Because an intelligent body is created by how you eat. I mean, I used to watch Nakamura Sensei, this very intelligent Japanese woman who lived with us for decades. If you know Gary Schneider's poetry, he appears in Gary's poems as Hosaka-san, because that was her married name. In Gary Snyder's Gedichten, wenn ihr die kennt, da taucht sie auf als Hosaka-san, der Familienname, den sie hineingeheiratet hat.

[28:21]

Gary passed on his house to us and passed on Nakamura-sensei, Hosaka-san, to us too. Gary Snyder hat mir oder meiner Familie sein Haus weitergegeben und mit dem Haus kam Hosaka-san. And he knew it. almost everything about what she ate. And what herbs she should add and what little things she should do afterwards. She had a complex diet that went throughout the day because she'd take a little herb of this or a little bit of that and then she'd change, you know, and you have to be intelligent to do it. Different herbs have a complex diet and you have to have the intelligence to give yourself such a diet. But no one would dare say in America with all this stuff about obesity, one of the causes is ignorance.

[29:23]

You'd have a big problem. And sometimes it is the cause. My ignorant stomach is, you know, I'm sorry to say, a little ignorant. Yeah. Okay, so I think it's soon we should have a break. But let me respond just a little bit more to what Christina and Paul said. So I think we have this concept from the inside out, even if it's whatever language it is, And I think even the bowerbirds of Australia and New Guinea, do you know bowerbirds?

[30:35]

Do you know what a bowerbird is? No. They're great birds. I've known about them for years. Anyway, they build Very fancy little houses to attract females. New Guinea and Australia. Maybe like a teenage boy who has a fancy car. That's his bower. Yeah. Some of them make maple ones, which they weave flowers and things around a sapling tree. Has it... Maple ones. Maple, you know, like maple. Oh, maple ones. And some of them make little quite big things with a roof and walls, and they put hundreds of flowers and shelves and Pepsi-Cola tops and things.

[31:45]

And And the females come and investigate the houses two or three times, look around. They'll come back three or four times and investigate the houses. And the guys who make the best house have a line of females waiting up. well he doesn't think this was made by a contractor he knows it came from inside out and it was a reproductive process Yeah, and butterflies and pupation and chrysalises and all that, you know, it's all from inside out.

[33:09]

Butterflies and what? Pupation. A pupae is a chrysalis, right? And pupation, like gestation, is the process of being inside the pupae, I guess you pronounce it. Pupung, pupung. Pupung, yeah. Pupung, pupung. Yeah, and some, you know, monarch butterflies are only a couple weeks, some are months, and I think the swallowtail butterfly can eat years in the pupa. Hmm. You can, no, don't have to translate it.

[34:13]

Okay? Okay? So the monarch, I don't know how to say it, the monarchian falter, he only needs a few weeks, but the swallowtail, the swallowtail, the swallowtail, several years, several years, yeah, is in the... Depends on the circumstances, I think. Yeah. And the seeds are never... Yeah. Okay. So I'm just trying to find examples from the inside out that we're making even the space of this room. And I'm also speaking about Paul mentioning closely held attention. And the contrast between that and, well, let's stop right there.

[35:25]

I think there have been too many new ideas already this morning. And more than three new ideas make us tired. So let's have an old idea, a break. Thank you very much.

[35:58]

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